ICCTA Ray Hartstein Trustee Achievement Award

2006 Recipient
Linden A. Warfel
Parkland College


Linden A. Warfel's influence on higher education and trusteeship is nearly impossible to describe.

His soft-spoken manner belies his passionate commitment to Parkland College and Illinois' community college system.

Whether as chair of the Illinois Community College Board's Adult Education Funding Task Force, or as the head of his college's presidential search, he has shaped the direction of community colleges for years to come.


Parkland trustee Linden A. Warfel accepts his 2006 Ray Hartstein Trustee Achievement Award.

Parkland College trustee Linden A. Warfel accepts the
2006 Ray Hartstein Trustee Achievement Award.

Warfel has served as chair of the Parkland board, as president of the Illinois Community College Trustees Association, and as a champion of the Leadership and Core Values movement in Illinois.

He is also one of the Illinois system's most respected and eloquent spokespersons. In fact, last March, when ICCTA asked its members to list those individuals who had been most influential to them as trustees, Lin Warfel's name appeared oneverysingle list.

He has maintained an activist role in other civic organizations as well. Working in concert with like-minded groups, he has been a longtime advocate of property tax reform in order to more equitably fund Illinos' public schools.

This spring he successfully rallied the Illinois Farm Bureau to stand up in favor of college students and oppose the sale of the state's student loan program to a private vendor.

Known by many as a "farmer and a gentleman," he is also a published poet and writer. In accepting ICCTA's Ray Hartstein Trustee Achievement Award, he quoted from his own poem:

I have walked among you
some dozen years now
learned your faces
know your voices
can call your names

I've heard you speak your passions
seen you walk the lines
of reaching out to help
I know your heart to serve

Together, we have sought out wisdom
invited in, listened to and questioned
the best and brightest in the land
who ply themselves to understand

Together, too, we've helped to build
I've seen your courage
know your metal
watched you taking action

There's more to come
change, adapt our middle name
lead is what it's about

Walking together
speaking our passions
searching out wisdom
changing, adapting, acting
we'll challenge the mountains
and by God's grace move them...

My best to you!